For a few months I've very slowly learned kana, some kanj, and some grammer. I've stepped up the pace the last few weeks and I think it's messing with my head. I can't seem to get great sleep. I seep half as much as normal. I'm making weird verbal and spelling mistakes in English. When I'm driving in my car my eyes will pick up shapes and my mind immediatly associates them with kanji. Might just be part of the reprogramming my brain to think almost backwards in Japanese.

Anyone else notice any "side effects" from studying Japanese?

I think I'm turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so

I'm finding I'm speaking/thinking German a bit.... For some reason, the activity of trying to learn japanese has brought up quite a bit of German that I learned in high school.... And the more Japanese I try and learn, the more German words keep popping into my mind..... Soon I'll be speaking Japengman....

When I was studying kana, sometimes I would 'spot' kana shapes everywhere too, but now that effect has subsided.

Recently, I noticed that a couple of times, while I was speaking or writing in English or in Italian, I was tempted to say things like ''The groceries, I forgot to buy bread'.
That XはYが structure in Japanese is very expressive for contextualising things, so I guess my brain is starting to like thinking that way.B) I wish western languages had Topic & focus too instead of (or maybe in addition to) subject and object.

Last edited by SaigoNoBan on Mon 05.29.2006 8:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

are you studying right before bed? try studying in the morning instead. Sometimes an overactive brain can keep you up, so if you study right before bed it can keep you up as your brain reviews your lessons and seeks to integrate it.

I have noticed the kanji problem. If a word is far enough away and square enough looking, my brain seems to attempt to associate it with kanji first instead of letters. Then I get closer and my brain figures out it was a letter after all, or just some random pattern in a square shape.

Last edited by Infidel on Mon 05.29.2006 9:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

yesterday I studied some kana just before going to bed, I couldn't sleep for some time and this day, at school, I saw all those kana just flying through my mind and couldn't concentrate on the lessons...